World heritage listed Hoi An is pretty special (all about it here ) - fascinating and beautiful by day, and a dazzling latern fantasy by night, crawling with locals and tourists of whom many are Vietnamese as far as I can fathom, heaps are from Korea, and westerners are at best no more than say 10%.
One just hopes that it doesn't implode under it own popularity. The centre of the old town is car and vehicle free. Every old building is a shop (mostly selling rubbish), a restaurant and/or a cooking school, the occasional oldy worldy hotel, and all this riddled with street sellers, food stalls, smoke and incense, and anything and everything else you can imagine. Beneath the superficial razzle dazzle, there are hints of the old colonial past in dark corners and an eclectic architectural palimpsest.
The recently restored covered Japanese bridge is a big focal point and the major photo stop.
We did buy 'lucky candle' and 'make wish' as we sent them down the river watching them bob away into the night dark waters.
But mostly it remains all about the people. These people are delightful; tiny little (exceptions apply, rarely) wirey bundles of energy, and mostly so young, and many young families. Occasionally you catch the haunted look of someone older, someone who has seen more than you care to think about, let alone know.
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